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Jonathan Bowden

Jonathan David Anthony Bowden (12 April 1962 – 29 March 2012) was an English far-right activist, orator, and writer. A member of the Conservative Party in the early 1990s, he later became involved in far-right organisations, including the British National Party (BNP). Bowden has been described as a "cult Internet figure" amongst the far-right movement, even several years after his death.

Life and career

Early life and education

Bowden was born in Kent, England, and attended Presentation College in Reading, Berkshire. His mother suffered from severe mental illness, and died when Bowden was 16 years old.

In 1984 he completed one year of a Bachelor of Arts history degree course at Birkbeck College, London University, as a mature student, but left without graduating. He subsequently enrolled at Wolfson College, Cambridge University, in autumn 1988, but left after a few months. He became a personal friend of Bill Hopkins during this time. Bowden was otherwise largely self-educated.

Conservative Party

Bowden began his political career as a member of the Conservative Party in the Bethnal Green and Stepney constituency. In 1990, he joined the Conservative Monday Club, and the following year made an unsuccessful bid to be elected onto its Executive Council. In 1991, he was appointed co-chairman with Stuart Millson of the club's media committee, and was also active in the Western Goals Institute. In 1992 Bowden was expelled from the Monday Club.

Revolutionary Conservative Caucus

Bowden and Stuart Millson co-founded the Revolutionary Conservative Caucus in November 1992 with the aim of introducing "abstract thought into the nether reaches of the Conservative and Unionist party". The group published a quarterly journal entitled The Revolutionary Conservative Review. By the end of 1994, Millson and Bowden parted company and the group dissolved.

In 1993 Bowden published the book Right through the European Books Society. He was also reported to be a prominent figure in the creative milieu responsible for the emergence of Right Now! magazine.

Freedom Party

Bowden then joined the Freedom Party, for which he was treasurer for a short time, and subsequently was a member of the Bloomsbury Forum, alongside Adrian Davies.

British National Party

In 2003 Bowden joined the BNP. He was appointed Cultural Officer, a position that was created by Nick Griffin – the party's leader at the time – to give Bowden an official role. In July 2007 Bowden resigned both his position and his membership after a dispute between him, Griffin, and other individuals within the party. Although he gave speeches throughout England at local meetings for the BNP, he never re-joined the party, and cut all ties after the 2010 general election.

Many of his speeches were recorded and have been transcribed. Topics of his lectures included philosophers, politicians, and historical literary figures who were prominent in the far-right. In late 2011 and early 2012, Bowden made 14 appearances on Richard B. Spencer's Vanguard podcast.

New Right

The New Right Committee, or simply "New Right", was a United Kingdom-based pan-European nationalist, far-right think tank founded by Bowden and Troy Southgate. The name was a reference to the French Nouvelle Droite and the group was otherwise unrelated to the wider British and American usage of the term "New Right". It was launched on 16 January 2005 at a meeting in central London.

In March 2005 the group described itself on its Yahoo! Groups page: "We are opposed to liberalism, democracy and egalitarianism and fight to restore the eternal values and principles that have become submerged beneath the corrosive tsunami of the modern world.

In June 2005 New Right announced that it would publish New Imperium, a quarterly magazine it described as an "intellectual journal". Bowden was the organisation's press officer.

Death

On 29 March 2012, Bowden died of heart failure or a heart attack at his home in Berkshire, 14 days before his 50th birthday. In 2011, he had been released from the psychiatric ward of a hospital, to which he was involuntarily committed earlier that year after suffering a mental breakdown.

Views

Bowden believed that some hierarchies are good for society, that "liberalism is moral syphilis" and that native Europeans are justified in asserting their cultural, ethnic, psychological and spiritual hegemony over Europe.

Bowden expressed pagan religious beliefs.

Bibliography

Works

Mad (London: Avant-Garde Publishing, 1989); (Nine-Banded Books, 2009) ISBN 978-0578006406
Sade (London: Egotist, 1992); (Nine-Banded Books, 2013) ISBN 978-0989697217
Aryan (London: Egotist Press, 1992); (Nine-Banded Books, 2020)
Brute (London: Egotist Press, 1992)
Skin (London: Egotist Press, 1992)
Axe (London: Egotist, 1993); (London: The Palingenesis Project, 2014). ISBN 978-1909606074
Craze (London: Egotist Press, 1993) ISBN 1-872181-17-1
Right (London: European Books Society 1994); (London: The Palingenesis Project, 2016) ISBN 978-1909606159
Collected Works, 6 vols. (London: Avant-guarde, 1995)
Standardbearers – British Roots of the New Right, edited by Adrian Davies, Eddy Butler & Jonathan Bowden; Beckenham, Kent, 180pps, (April 1999)
Apocalypse TV (London: The Spinning Top Club, 2007). ISBN 978-0-9557402-0-6
The Art of Jonathan Bowden (1974–2007) (London: The Spinning Top Club, 2007). ISBN 978-0-9557402-2-0
The Fanatical Pursuit of Purity (London: The Spinning Top Club, 2008). ISBN 978-0-9557402-3-7
Al-Qa’eda Moth (London: The Spinning Top Club, 2008). ISBN 978-0-9557402-5-1
Kratos (London: The Spinning Top Club, 2008). ISBN 978-0-9557402-1-3
A Ballet of Wasps (London: The Spinning Top Club, 2008). ISBN 978-0-9557402-6-8
Goodbye Homunculus! (London: The Spinning Top Club, 2009). ISBN 978-0-9557402-9-9
The Art of Jonathan Bowden, Vol. 2 (1968–1974) (London: The Spinning Top Club, 2009). ISBN 978-0-9557402-4-4
Lilith Before Eve (London: The Spinning Top Club, 2009). ISBN 978-0-9557402-8-2
Louisiana Half-Face (London: The Spinning Top Club, 2010). ISBN 978-0-9565120-2-4
The Art of Jonathan Bowden, Vol. 3 (1967–1974) (London: The Spinning Top Club, 2010). ISBN 978-0-9565120-1-7
Our Name Is Legion (London: The Spinning Top Club, 2011). ISBN 978-0-9565120-3-1
Colonel Sodom Goes to Gomorrah (London: The Spinning Top Club, 2011). ISBN 978-0-9565120-4-8
Locusts Devour a Carcass (London: The Spinning Top Club, 2012). ISBN 978-0-9565120-5-5
Spiders Are Not Insects (London: The Spinning Top Club, 2012). ISBN 978-0-9565120-6-2
The Speeches (London: Black Front Press, 2012). ISBN 978-0957324510
Pulp Fascism (San Francisco: Counter-Currents, 2013). ISBN 978-1935965640
Western Civilization Bites Back (San Francisco: Counter-Currents, 2014). ISBN 978-1935965770
Demon (London: The Palingenesis Project, 2014). ISBN 978-1909606043
Blood (London: The Palingenesis Project, 2016). ISBN 978-1909606098
Heat (London: The Palingenesis Project, 2017). ISBN 978-1909606197
Deathlock (London: The Palingenesis Project, 2017). ISBN 978-1909606210
Extremists: Studies in Metapolitics (San Francisco: Counter-Currents, 2017). ISBN 978-1940933481
Why I Am Not a Liberal (Imperium Press, 2020). ISBN 978-0648859307
Reactionary Modernism (San Francisco: Counter-Currents, 2022). ISBN 978-1642641677
The Cultured Thug (San Francisco: Counter-Currents, 2023). ISBN 978-1642640113

Filmography

References

External links

Official website on the Wayback Machine
The Jonathan Bowden Archive
BOWDEN! on Spreaker
Jonathan Bowden Archive on YouTube, featuring all known recordings of Bowden's speeches and lectures